Among the 52,000 students on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, there is a huge diversity beyond the dozens of majors offered.

There are lifelong Minnesotans and students from dozens of other countries. Small-town and urban. Conservative and liberal. Religious and atheist. Straight and gay.

One thing the 5,500 freshmen have in common is that for nearly all of them, it’s the first time they’ve lived away from home, separated from the familiar. Living among the other students, their worldviews may be challenged, and they may feel confused — even threatened.

A freshman recently contacted the Watchdog because she had been randomly assigned to a room on the same wing of the same floor of the same dorm as the Lavender House, a gay, lesbian and transgender “living learning community” or LLC. She had grown up in the suburbs and attended a Catholic school.

“I’ve never been around it,” she told the Watchdog. “All of a sudden, they just put you in the middle of that.”

She told the Watchdog she was particularly upset by the prospect of sharing a communal bathroom with lesbians. Before school started, she and her mother had contacted the U, asking for a different housing assignment and had been told she couldn’t be reassigned because of this concern. Because of its anti-discrimination policy, if a student is assigned a roommate of a different race or a different sexual orientation, for example, that’s not an acceptable reason to ask for a change, nor is living on the same floor as an LLC that makes a student feel uncomfortable. The only way to get reassigned that early in the year is if the U mistakenly puts a boy and a girl in the same room.

Could the Watchdog do anything for her?

The Watchdog decided to look into the reader’s concern but wanted to explore it a broader basis. She met with Patrick Troup, director of retention initiatives and coordinator for the Huntley House for African-American Men; Susan Stubblefield, associate director for residential life; Kristie Feist, assistant director for academic initiatives and student engagement, and Laura Coffin Koch, associate professor for teaching and learning.

Overall, the group expressed sympathy for the Watchdog’s reader, as they would for any new student who’s finding the early going rough for any reason. Many students feel uncomfortable when, for whatever reason, they aren’t finding ways to make connections with people like themselves. That can lead to academic failure and dropping out.

That’s why these LLCs exist in the first place. There are 30 of them, created with the needs of first-year students and transfer students in mind, and this fall, 1,500 students are living in them.

Their focuses are widespread: Hmong students and American Indian students, science and math students of color, women engineering students, arts students. There’s one for students who agree not to drink, smoke or use drugs, and another for students interested in fraternities and sororities. There are houses for students who want to speak French, Spanish or German or use American Sign Language.

One is focused on out-of-state students — maybe somebody from New York City who has never heard of hotdish — as “an introduction to traditions and events to become familiar with Minnesota culture.”

They’re all connected with academic programs in some way — some even require enrolling in particular classes — and they offer events and counseling.

The point is to help students who might otherwise find themselves adrift on the massive campus connect with a community they can relate to with students of similar backgrounds and interests.

Most are open to anybody interested in the topic: A supportive straight student, or “ally,” can live in the Lavender House, for example, and a student doesn’t have to be Hispanic to live in Casa Sol or black to live in the Huntley House for African-American Men.

But some aren’t so inclusive: The Honors Residential Community is just for students who have been accepted in the U’s honors program; the Carlson Leadership House is open only to first-year students who have been accepted to the Carlson School of Management; and the Design House is only for students accepted in College of Design programs.

None restricts the religion of its members.

The LLCs are one way the U tries to downsize the experience for new students. Others include the freshman Welcome Week, where students are shown around campus and meet other new students; small-group freshman seminars; 920 student clubs ranging from academics to social to sports; and dorm advisers who handle a plethora of questions.

The LLCs provide an environment where people can relax and be themselves, Stubblefield said; where they can let their hair down, Troup said.

The flip side may be that some students sharing the residence floors don’t feel comfortable with people they perceive as being so different from themselves.

So where does that leave the young woman who contacted the Watchdog?

She is still in a majority on her wing, where Lavender House students are 12 among the 36 students. Even so, she said, she felt like an outcast during the initial floor meeting. She has gay friends, she said, and “I don’t discriminate against them. I just feel awkward” in this situation.

After everybody has moved in, anybody can apply to be reassigned without having to state a reason, although all requests might not be able to be accommodated. But she and her roommate feel settled and have decided to stay there, she said. They have found an individual bathroom with a shower and a locking door.

“We’re not dwelling on it. We don’t want to be drama queens,” she said. “Everyone has their group they want to be a part of. I think they deserve that if that’s what they want. I don’t want to sound offensive at all. This topic is really tricky.”

Overall, she told the Watchdog, she’s enjoying student life at the U. That’s in part because she and her roommate get along well — because they’re very much alike.

In some situations, being different can be dangerous. Gay, lesbian and transgender students have more reason than most to want to find a group of like-minded people right away.

The Watchdog talked to two upperclassmen who used to live at Lavender House. They were happy as freshmen to be able to live in a place in which they didn’t feel threatened.

“I (didn’t) want to worry about my roommate hate-criming me in my sleep,” said Noel Ibbs, who is transsexual. “Lavender House was a safe space to just be myself.”

He has been well-treated on campus, he said. He just wishes there were more gender-neutral bathrooms, which he needs to feel safe.

Joe Fifield, who said he identifies as gay or bisexual, said it would make more sense to dedicate an entire wing of the dorm floor to Lavender House; he said he believes if its existence were better known, it would have no trouble filling up.

Jason Jackson of the U Office for Equity and Diversity said that when he was a student living in campus housing at a public college, he found a sign saying “No fags here” in a drawer in his room. He confronted his roommates, who denied putting the sign there. He contacted staff and was moved to a different dorm.

Jackson now is assistant director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Programs Office, which is connected with Lavender House. People must realize they don’t have to be alike to have a successful work or personal relationship, Jackson said. To that end, he conducts workshops that are meant not necessarily to make people change their minds, but to encourage them to respect each other’s differences.

The point, Jackson said, is this: “We’re going to be working together, so how can we make this work?”

FYI

— The University of Minnesota has a tremendous diversity among its 52,000 students on the Twin Cities campus. One way the U addresses this diversity is its 30 “living learning communities,” which were created to give first-year and transfer students a place to feel at home by putting them with students who have similar backgrounds. Find details at housing.umn.edu/programs/llc.

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